Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

Everyone has their own perspective on diversity and culture.  I spoke to a few of my colleagues about this subject this week just to see how they defined both.  My colleagues and I work for the military and see both diversity and culture as a challenge at times because of the melting pot we live among.  A percentage of our families are single military personnel or dual military.  I know when I tell anyone that we have single families, we have some rolling of the eyes, but being a single military personnel is very difficult and is challenging to the service member because of the long hours and dangerous aspect of their job.  Military culture is one that I have written about before in previous classes and I love to elaborate about this culture when I am able to do so.  All members of this community take care of their own.  The military base that work with is very large but still small enough for each member to know of each other.  The military culture can almost sound fictional until you experience it yourself.

Displaying respect for each other’s own culture can be a challenge with our families and with the classroom environment.   One example of this is when advertised holidays such as Halloween is brought up in the center.  Out of respect for our family’s culture, we do not promote the special effects that come with the holiday.  Witches, ghosts, and jack-o-lanterns are not appropriately defined well and are not included in the celebration that we do for the month of October.  Because we are nervous about inclusion with diversity and other cultures, we will omit celebrating them.  We need to stray from that feeling.  For anyone involved in the early childhood education field should be aware of each family member’s home life and ready to include it in the classroom environment.  When we plan activities in the classroom educating our children about diversity and culture, we assist with teaching children to live in harmony and to respect others.